When I Need A Pick Me Up, by my friend Ryan King

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Persistence

The meme I did freaked me out from the begininng question. When I dissect it, the questions ask about intimate details of my life, and the music I treasure on my mp3 player answers the questions. So using the songs as answers are bound to portray a significant pattern of what's going on inside the heart.

It's no surprise that a lot of my music are love songs. But it is surprising how well the particular love song fit the particular question. It makes me want to expand on the meme by examining certain questions and their answers. So to start with the first;

How would you best describe your personality?"#41" -Dave Matthews Band

Here are the lyrics to this song, followed by a YouTube video so you can hear what these words sound like from him;

Do you wish a dance and while I'm in the frontMy play on time is wonOh, but the difficulty is coming here

I will go in this wayOh and find my own way outI wont tell you what to beBut I'm coming to much moreMe

All at once the ghosts come backReeling in you nowOh tell me what if they came down crashing

Used to be that you and meUsed to play forAll of the loneliness that nobodyNotices nowI'm begging slow I'm coming here

Only waiting

I wanted to stayI wanted to playI wanted to love you

I'm only this farAnd only tomorrow leads my way

I'm coming waltzing back and moving into your headPlease, I wouldn't pass this byI wouldn't take any more than I needWhat sort of man goes byI will bring waterWhy wont you ever be gladAnd melt into wonderI came in praying for youWhy wont you runInto rain and playLet the tears splash all over youSo the question again is; How would you best describe your personality?The song starts by asking the listener into the life of the singer. Then it goes into the singer's plea to the listener for a type of patience. Patience while the singer sorts some things out. The singer wants to dance with the listener, but he finds it hard to even approach.

The singer tries to work his way in, but knows he will only flee eventually. It's easier to leave than to come. The singer is moved to begging after reminiscing about the loneliness and the ghosts they left behind. The singer tells the listener what she may have not noticed--he wanted to stay, he wanted to play, and above all, he wanted to love her. Desperately. But he can't get there. He just can't.

The rest, only the lyrics say it best.

"I'm coming, waltzing back, and moving into your head. Please. I wouldn't pass this by. I wouldn't take anymore than I need. What sort of man goes by. I will bring water. Why won't you ever be glad and melt into wonder? I came in praying for you. Why won't you run into rain and play? Let the tears splash all over you."

Scott, you see it clearly. She's holding me at arm's length and that's all it has ever taken for me to stop trying. This resistance against me is enough. I lack the hairy-chested aggression that it seems to take to break through her doubts and fears. Badly as I want to be that guy--the guy I see in so many of you heroes of mine--I just ... I just die inside. I just don't have it what it takes to believe in myself more than she does. Not in this contest of me. By myself, I'm okay. If someone joins me, they have to join me. I swear, I've got what it takes to support them. Just not enough to support myself if they don't want me.

Dave Matthews "#41" best describes my personality because it dissects the very chemistry of my life, and how I came to be where I am.

8 comments:

Sometimes I wish I could erase all the pain of my past so that I would have the fortitude to push forward. I feel like that dog in Call of the Wild, Buck, who realizes at a certain point that a man with a club is boss. Except nobody has a club anymore, but I let the ghosts beat me down still. Not always, but sometimes when it counts. Winning involves getting past that.

Ah, Scott. You are a dynamo of push-forwardness. Despite the feeling-inside, you have the evidence surrounding you. You did it, and you do it still. Jackson and Emmett knows this. I believe they exist and they love their lives because of this. Because you did it. And your wife, who I see as protected in a castle so sturdily built by her knight in shining armor that I don't even know her name or the color of her hair, she knows you did it. In your life, I daresay the doubts and fears are Buck, and you are the man with the club.

You might be overstating my prowess by a small bit, but I appreciate your kind words. My wife by the way has black hair and fair skin. She does live within a castle, so much so that she doesn't want to peek out. Be careful thinking others have so much and you have so little. Those things are just a chance meeting away, and you have to remember that things hardly ever live up to the dream. Try loving on yourself as well. I think that's what I finally suceeded in doing when I was single. I got my own apartment and focused on being alone while trying to get laid every night, and suceeding enough to make each occasion something to celebrate. But when a guy has built a life for himself, that one aspect is the one that will turn a head your way. Seems to me that you are doing just that, so build on it and know that you're pretty fucking cool, even if the people you wish would don't always see it.

There are still two words I don't say aloud, and this is a layover back from my puritanical Bible-thumpin' days.

I don't say "F*ck" or "Sh!t" although God knows I think them often enough. But I love the muscular way Scott says it, so out of love for the brotherhood, I typed it out in it's fullness.

Oh, and I say "ass," as in "big-ass," "dumbass," and "fake-ass," but I don't say "assh*le." I've no explanation for it except since I was 16 I had conditioned my gut to reject them all and I haven't embraced cussin' in all it's glory yet.